


it's still pretty fucking serious

by supercatandfriends



Category: Dead To Me (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:14:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24826624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercatandfriends/pseuds/supercatandfriends
Summary: Judy's had a pretty rough day. Jen's there, but on a totally different frequency. And Judy's a bit too quick to drop her own problems so that no one else has to deal with them.(depiction and discussion of self-harm, really not a Fun Light Read)
Relationships: Judy Hale/Jen Harding
Comments: 11
Kudos: 110





	it's still pretty fucking serious

**Author's Note:**

> do i even like this? i don't know anymore
> 
> but i've written it anyway and y'all are gonna have to accept that. judy is... harder for me to write than jen but i do relate to her a lot more. so like, the feelings here are genuine but the writing might suck more than things from jen's pov

Judy looked down at the raised red lines forming along her thighs, wondering how she’d ended up here. She fought down the urge to dig her fingernails into her leg again, taking several deep breaths and trying to count to… fucking something. Because Jen was gonna be home soon and she did  _ not  _ deserve to see her like this. 

The day hadn’t started off bad. At least, not as bad as some of her days had. But then she’d heard one of the nurses at work talking about her. She was telling some new employee that Judy used to  _ live  _ there and Judy knew they were judging her and everything had just spiraled from there. She’d burned herself on a hot plate and yelled an obscenity that got her several offended glares. A resident had been downright  _ rude  _ to her for nearly an hour during a painting session. And even when she’d finally been allowed to leave, she got to the car, and her  _ mother  _ was calling. From prison. Where she lived. Because Judy had fucking put her there. 

Conversations with her mother always left her feeling like shit. Conversations with her mother when she was already having a bad day left her feeling absolutely destroyed. She’d barely been able to drive herself home without having to pull over so she could fall apart in relative safety. 

All she’d managed to do since  _ getting _ home was make sure the boys had something to eat and were okay before locking herself in the master bathroom, claiming she didn’t feel well. 

Just thinking about it again sent Judy right back down a rabbit hole. She pressed her nails into her knees, harshly dragging them up and leaving more angry lines in their wake. 

And that’s when she heard Jen call up from the first floor. 

“Fuck,” Judy mumbled, shoving her dress back down and forcing herself to get up off the bathroom floor. “Fuck, fuck.” 

Judy leaned up against the sink, trying desperately to fix her makeup in the two seconds she had until Jen was in their room, looking for her. She ran a cold washcloth over her face, pressing it tight under her eyes to try to rid them of some of the puffiness. 

“Judy? You up here?” She heard Jen opening the bedroom door and she quickly turned around and flushed the toilet. 

“Yeah, just give me a second, baby” Judy called back, turning the water back on and spending as much time as she could justify washing her hands. Her breathing was mostly back to normal and while most of her makeup was gone, she didn’t  _ look _ like she'd been crying. As long as she didn't look herself in the eye, she could probably get through this.

She’d barely made it out of the bathroom before Jen was  _ on  _ her. Pressing her up against the wall with her hands on Judy’s hips and her mouth-  _ god, her fucking mouth-  _ nipping at Judy’s collarbone. 

“You’re not gonna fucking  _ believe  _ the day I’ve had,” Jen said, pulling away only long enough to get the sentence out before ducking back down to attack the side of Judy’s neck with kisses that were quickly turning into bites. Judy scrambled for purchase on Jen’s back, trying to adjust to the massive emotional switch that was occurring around her. But she let it happen, feeling herself starting to mellow out the longer Jen was just  _ there _ . 

“I- _ ah, fuck, Jen-  _ I can’t even tell if it was good or bad,” Judy said between breaths, her hands finally coming to rest on Jen’s lower back, pulling her blouse out of her skirt and running her hands up the smooth expanse of skin she found underneath. 

“It was fucking fantastic.” Jen’s hands trailed lower, coming to rest on the backs of her thighs and pulling Judy up into her. Judy wrapped her legs around Jen’s waist, readjusting her hands to tangle in the other woman’s hair as she leaned forward to kiss her. 

Jen bit down hard on Judy’s bottom lip, and then immediately soothed the bite with her tongue. Judy moaned into the kiss, her fingers running underneath the clip that was holding Jen’s hair up. 

Turning them away from the wall, Jen carried Judy to their bed and not-so-gently threw her down onto it. 

“You’re in a mood today,” Judy said, smirking as she watched Jen unbutton her shirt and unceremoniously toss it to the floor. She was perfectly content to go along with whatever mood Jen happened to be in. Jen returned the smirk, reaching a hand up into her own now-messy updo and pulling it loose. 

“I closed on a house, a really huge fucking house. The ugly one that Lorna said wouldn’t sell,” Jen said, nudging Judy further back onto the bed so she could straddle her thighs. “She was  _ pissed,  _ but what’s she even gonna say? ‘ _ Do your job worse, Jennifer’? _ She had to fake being proud of me for ten full uncomfortable minutes and it was  _ glorious,  _ Judy.” 

Judy managed a laugh at Jen’s spot-on imitation of Lorna’s haughty voice, feeling lighter than she had all day. She felt like, if she could just forget for a few hours and let herself pretend that everything had always been fine, then they just would be. And Jen’s hands roughly tugging at the hem of her dress was certainly helping matters. 

She felt  _ loved.  _ If Jen wanted to be with her, then obviously she must have done something right. It was proof that someone thought she was desirable and worthy and- 

“ _ Judy.”  _ Jen’s gasp broke her train of thought. Because it didn’t sound sexy. It sounded  _ concerned.  _ Judy lifted her head up off the bed and propped herself up with her arms, trying to gauge what had just happened. “What the hell happened to your legs?” 

Jen’s eyes were taking in the damage that Judy had done to herself. The dozen or so harsh red lines, nearly a foot long on both of her legs, reaching from her knees to her mid-thigh. Judy watched several distinct emotions flash across her face. Confusion, worry, and anger flickered by quickly. Jen finally settled on something that was far too close to pity for Judy’s liking. 

“I.. scratched myself,” Judy said numbly, her voice betraying absolutely zero emotions. She wanted to reach down and cover herself, but couldn’t seem to make her hands move to actually achieve this. 

“Yeah, Jude, I can see that,” Jen said, obviously trying to keep her own voice at a level that some might call calm. But Judy had seen Jen  _ calm  _ and this wasn’t it. “Can I ask  _ why?”  _

“Some of us did  _ not  _ have a fantastic day,” Judy mumbled, refusing to meet Jen’s eyes. Her own vision was going blurry with tears that she refused to let drop because she didn’t need  _ more  _ pity from Jen. She felt Jen pull her dress back down, knowing that she had to be disgusted with her choices. 

All of the shameful feelings Judy had been feeling before Jen had gotten home came rushing back harder than before. Anxiety welled up in her chest, quickly spreading to every other part of her. She mentally begged her stomach to calm down, unable to bear the humiliation that would surely come if she threw up right now.

“Hey,” Jen’s voice had gone soft, like she was scared she was going to break her. “Why didn’t you say something?” 

“Say what?” Judy asked, her whole face going red. She ground her teeth together, fighting back the urge to pull away from Jen entirely. “‘ _ Hey, baby, I tried to rip my own skin off today because a nurse said something mean about me, how was your day?’  _ I’ll keep that in mind for next time, thanks.” 

“How about ‘ _ I had a really rough day, can we talk about it?’  _ You know, like how regular people speak to one another,” Jen said, snark slipping out instead of the calm collectedness she’d been trying to maintain. 

“I didn’t really have time to say much when you came home and immediately jumped me,” Judy shot back, finally meeting Jen’s eyes and seeing them filled with hurt. 

“I- I’m sorry,” Jen stuttered, shaking her head and loosening her grip on Judy’s hips. Judy wasn’t sure if she was apologizing for the snark or the unexpected making out, but she was quick to forgive either way. 

“It’s okay,” slipped out, even though  _ nothing  _ was okay and she could feel herself falling back on old habits that she’d sworn she wouldn’t go back to. Closing herself off and pretending that everything was fine and dealing with it all in the unhealthiest fucking ways possible. 

Jen sighed, rolling off Judy before she made her way to the head of the bed on her knees. Judy just watched her leave, hearing her head bang against the headboard as she leaned back against it and closed her eyes. 

“C’mere,” Jen muttered, patting the spot beside her. Judy didn’t fight her. Didn’t want to fight her. She was just so fucking  _ tired _ . So she dragged herself up to where Jen was sitting and tucked herself into her side, letting her tears fall onto Jen’s shoulder in silence for a few minutes. 

“I don’t think it’s okay,” Jen said, “if you feel like that, then obviously something is very much  _ not okay.”  _

It was like a dam broke, with how quickly it all came rushing out. How she’d had the worst day. How she felt like the stress and pain of it had seeped into her bones. How she’d felt so fucking  _ alone  _ while she’d sat on the bathroom floor just trying to feel anything that wasn’t that.

“-and then you came home-” 

“And tried to fuck you becasue I couldn’t read the room,” Jen muttered. She’d been quiet while Judy got everything off her chest, but felt comfortable interrupting as soon as she was up to speed on the situation. “God, I’m sorry, Jude. You shouldn’t have to deal with any of that.” 

Judy frowned, shaking her head. 

“And then you came home,” she said a bit more insistently, “and I wasn’t  _ alone _ anymore, Jen.” 

Jen pressed a kiss to the top of Judy’s head and said, “Can you at least promise me you’ll see someone about this? A therapist or something?” 

“I’ll look in the morning,” Judy acquiesced, sighing a bit in defeat. Jen was right. She might be able to make Judy feel better, but she couldn’t  _ fix  _ everything. That was a fucking lot to put on a person. 

“I love you,” Jen whispered, her mouth still pressed to Judy’s head. Judy could feel Jen’s hands shaking a bit and knew she was holding back tears for Judy’s sake. “And I can’t lose you to yourself. Please don’t make me live through that, Judy, because I just can’t.” 

Judy sniffled, wiping her own tears with the corner of the sheet. She let out a shaky laugh. “I mean, I’ve never cut myself or anything. It’s just some scratches. They’ll go away in a couple days.” 

“It’s still pretty fucking serious, Judy,” Jen said. “It doesn’t have to leave scars to be considered self-harm. There’s no like, self-harm Olympics, baby. It’s all bad.” 

And really, Judy had never once thought about it like that before. She’d held a razor blade in her hand and promised herself that she’d never fall that low because she couldn’t stand the idea of having the scars for the rest of her life. She’d always been so certain that permanently maring her own skin was out of the question. She had  _ lines  _ that she wasn’t going to cross, but she really was still hurting herself. Causing physical pain to distract from how much emotional pain she was in. 

“I love you, too,” Judy said, doubling down on her resolve to call someone in the morning. “You’re not gonna lose me.” 

They stayed like that until Judy started to fall asleep, even though it was still fairly early in the evening, with Jen rubbing circles on Judy’s back. 

She’d spent so long telling herself she deserved it. All the pain and suffering she felt, she’d brought it all on herself. Getting help would mean forgiving herself and, fuck, that would be hard. But she could try. 

Because this time she had Jen. Who’d forgiven her for everything even though Judy was so certain she hadn’t deserved it. And if Jen could forgive her, maybe she could learn to forgive herself, too. Or at least cut herself a little bit of slack. 

It had been an absolute garbage day. Tomorrow was looking a little bit hopeful, though. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> @debbielouocean on tumblr


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